Socio-economic deprivation has an influence on the outcome for patients diagnosed with breast, colorectal and bronchial cancer.

However, there are few data on its association with gastric cancer.

Dr Michael Stephens and colleagues from Wales determined influences of socio-economic deprivation on outcomes for patients with gastric cancer.

Operative mortality is 3-fold higher for patients from the most deprived areas

Scandanavian Journal of Gastroenterology

The researchers prospectively studied 330 consecutive patients with gastric adenocarcinoma presenting to a single hospital between 1995 and 2004.

Deprivation scores were calculated using the National Assembly for Wales Indices of Multiple Deprivation.

The research team subdivided the patients into quintiles for analysis, with quintile 5 as the most deprived areas and quintile 1 as the least deprived area.

The researchers found that inhabitants in quintile 5 were younger at presentation, and had longer delays in diagnosis compared with patients from quintile 1.

Operative mortality was 3-fold higher for patients from the most deprived areas when compared with patients from less deprived areas.

The team found no correlation between stage of disease and socio-economic deprivation.

The researchers observed that for patients undergoing potentially curative surgery, the 5-year survival for patients from the most deprived areas was 32%.

However, for patients from the least deprived areas, 5-year survival was 66%.

Dr Stephens' team reports “Socio-economic deprivation was associated with younger age at diagnosis, longer diagnostic delay, greater operative mortality and a shorter duration of survival following R0 gastrectomy.”

“These poorer outcomes were not explained by the stage of disease at diagnosis.”